Zodiak
Zodiak is an underground syndicate providing special services to other criminal enterprises. In specific, Zodiak provides a variety of options for dealing with troublesome metahuman heroes. Business Model Zodiak is first and foremost a business, an incredibly illegal business but a business nonetheless. As such it is best understood in terms of it's clients, it's products, and how it expands and protects its market share. Zodiak's customers are everyone else in the criminal heirarchy; triads, yakuza clans, street gangs, drug cartels, et cetera. They have no qualms about dealing with the lowliest street punk, provided they can pay. Zodiak's products are very diverse, though not all products are available in all markets. They sell combat drugs, cybernetics, full power armor, specially created mutants, trained psychics, advanced weaponry, clones, just about anything that might concievably be useful in taking on metahumans, be they heroes or in the employ of a rival syndicate. Zodiak is very aggressive in dealing with any group that can pose a threat to their business model. In typical fashion, though, this rarely involves direct violence. Much more likely is a hostile acquisition. Whenever possible Zodiak prefers to keep the violence, and especially the deaths, to a minimum. Their weapons are almost always non-lethal. They do broker assassination servies but the fees are astronomical. Partly this is practical, by being merely a facilitator of violence, rather than an instigator of it, they often escape serious attention of authorities and heroes. On the other hand since their business is to sell solutions to hero problems they have a vested interest in making sure the population of heroes is not reduced. Zodiak operates in many ways like a drug cartel. They try to get and keep their clients hooked so they can keep bleeding them of cash. A typical Zodiak sales scenario goes like this: Mob A is at war with mob B. The fighting has gotten nasty and spilled out into civilian areas. The civilian damage has attracted the attention of heroes who are busting up both mobs. Mob A is losing and getting desperate. Zodiak approaches mob A and offers services, say some high tech blasters that can do a lot of (non-lethal) damage to targets. The blasters don't cost too much and Zodiak is willing to lease them to mob A so the costs are delayed while the satisfaction is immediate. Mob A starts doing much better against the heroes that have been dogging it. Mob B starts getting nervous that as soon as the heroes are out of the picture mob A will use those same blasters on their underworld rivals. Zodiak sells mob B some blasters and a couple mutant powerhouses for a significant chunk of cash. Meanwhile mob A is finding that regular wear and tear is affecting their blasters, they need repairs and tuning, which Zodiak offers, for a cost of course. Eventually both mobs will be armed to the teeth with weapons they cannot maintain without the help of Zodiak technicians, and which they cannot afford to do without given the massive armament of the enemy syndicate. Then too each mob will have likely garnered the attention of more powerful heroes thus necessitating a bigger investment in Zodiak services. From time to time Zodiak materials will fall into the hands of heroes. Zodiak views this as acceptable since the threat heroes pose is precisely what drives Zodiak sales. Divisions and Services Zodiak operates six geographic divisions. Each division appears to be under the control of one of the board of directors. Chiron Labs The Chiron Lab network provides mutants through the use of mutagens and radiation. They also subcontract to Dr. Chimera for custom made neogenesis. Equalus Equalus provides high technology man portable weapons. Gemini Gemini provides rudimentary cloning services. To date Zodiak has had limited success with cloning technology and they are very eager to expand their capabilities in this regard. Maidencrone Maidencrone consists of two different departents, Thunder Walker, which searches for magical artifacts, and the Colorless College, which trains mystical assets. Project Horizon/ Polaris Polaris is Zodiak's psychic recruitment, research, and training program. Project Horizon was an attempt to infiltrate the Campus but without success. Whether it has been discontinued is unclear. Promethean Industries Promethean Industries is a corporation that manufactures low power exoskeletons for construction, prison guards, et cetera. Secretly the company is owned by Zodiak and has a business in selling illegal powered armor suits Behemoths In very rare cases Zodiak finds it must make a big example of someone. It is for just these cases that they contracted with Dr. Chimera to produce the behemoths.